


We Could be Heroes

by east_wind



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/east_wind/pseuds/east_wind
Summary: Early spring, 1985. It's their senior year, and their world is changing.





	We Could be Heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphea/gifts).



> The obligatory high school AU.

Luke was nearly asleep, stretched out under two blankets- the year’s mass April Fool’s joke had been two inches of snow and thirty degree temperatures, with wind that whipped right through the seams of the house. It was Friday, he was meeting Leia and Han tomorrow for sledding, if there was enough snow for it, and ice cream, and it was a rare weekend where he had no major homework. He was very warm.  


These thoughts were interrupted by a series of small sounds, like something striking glass. Something was tapping on his window. Probably bits of snow caught by the wind, he thought, trying very hard not to consider more sinister possibilities. He recalled suddenly an old childhood fear, long forgotten, of things tapping on his window and leering in when he pulled back the curtains. The thought was not helpful.  


Luke sat up slowly, and, with altogether more courage than he truly felt, stood and moved to the window. Carefully, he pulled back the curtain.  


Much to his relief, the figure leaning against the house below the window was Han.  


Luke slid the window open a few inches, making sure to keep it silent so as not to wake his aunt and uncle. He immediately regretted it, as the temperature in the room quickly dropped twenty degrees. “What are you doing here? You scared me half to death!” He was whispering as loudly as he dared.  


“Happy to see you, too,” Han said. “You weren’t asleep up there, were you?”  


“Not really.”  


“Good. Now, come out here, I have a surprise for you.”  


“Han, look- it’s the middle of the night-”  


“-It’s only eleven-”  


“-Whatever, it’s eleven o’clock, it’s about fifteen degrees, if my aunt and uncle found out I had snuck out they would kill me.”  


“Wear a coat, and leave them a note or something. It’s Friday night, what time is your curfew?”  


“Eleven.”  


“That doesn’t help much, does it?”  


Luke sighed, torn.  


“Alright, if you don’t want to do this, then that’s fine. I’d understand. We’re still meeting tomorrow, right?”  


“Yeah, I’m still planning on it.” Despite his assurance otherwise, Luke could see even in the darkness of the yard that Han was crestfallen. He sighed again, and shivered. “Alright, Han, I’ll come. Give me a few minutes to get dressed, I’ll meet you outside.” That earned him a delighted smile, which he returned before shutting the window.  


Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were already asleep. Not once since he’d left elementary school had they woken up to check on him during the night. He could leave through the garage, go- wherever Han was taking him, and come back and they would never be the wiser. He repeated this logic as he pulled on jeans and a sweater, stuffed his feet into boots, and grabbed his coat and scarf off the hooks in the hallway. As quietly as possible, he opened the garage door and tip-toed out, shutting it carefully behind him. From there to outside was easy, now that he was out of earshot of his aunt and uncle.  


Han was waiting for him, leaning against the side of the garage. Luke stood on tiptoes to kiss him. “Where are we going?”  


Han smiled at him, a small smile, but unabashed. “You’ll see. We have to walk up the street a little, first. I parked the Falcon at the playground so your aunt and uncle didn’t hear it in the driveway.”  


“Probably a good idea, Uncle Owen has sharp ears for things being out of sorts at night.” He laced his fingers with Han’s, and they walked the short distance to the playground, where the Falcon was waiting. “Does it have heat today?” Luke asked, as he settled into the front passenger seat- a rare privilege, unless he was alone with Han, as Leia was shotgun-calling queen of the world.  


Han scoffed. “Maybe, but don’t count on it. She hasn’t been doing too good lately, I’ve got to scrape up some money to take her to the shop.” He looked worried, in his suppressed, understated way, at the task, but Luke knew this wasn’t the time to talk about it. The car started on only the second try, and Luke busied himself fiddling with the heat, which did eventually start to release a trickle of hot air, and the cassette player.  


He dug in the glove compartment for a tape. “The Waterboys? Who’re they?”  


“I haven’t played them for you yet?”  


“Not that I remember,” Luke said.  


“They’re pretty good.” This was, Luke knew, almost certainly Han-speak for “This band is incredible”. “The last track is the best.” Luke skipped ahead to that one, and they drove and listened and shivered in silence. Han was right. It was a very good song, and Luke told him so.  


“So, where are we going?” He had been paying attention to their route but couldn’t think of any likely destination based on what direction they were headed.  


“That would be telling,” Han said, and he winked at Luke, which was absolutely ridiculous and somehow still just on this side of charming.  


Some minutes later, Luke spoke up again. “Han, are we going to the overlook?” He had been watching road signs in the contented silence of driving, The Waterboys still on in the background, and he was reasonably certain that no other place suitable for a middle of the night excursion was this far East of the suburb.  


“Maybe.” Luke could tell from Han’s smile, though, that he’d figured it out. Sure enough, they pulled up the slope to the overlook parking, past the prominent “Scenic Park Closes at Dusk” sign. Luke knew that Han saw it, and he raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry. “Don’t pay attention to it,” Han said, “it’s only there so they have grounds to bust kids for drinking up here.” He parked the Falcon in a prime space, centered at the front of the overlook. He shut the engine off, but left the stereo running and the windows rolled down. “Luke, get the blanket from the trunk, will you?”  


“Anything else?”  


“Not now,” Han called from inside the car. Without looking, Luke knew he was fighting with the mechanism that ejected the tapes. It was perpetually finicky, and the cold weather never helped. Luke came up and leaned on the sill of the open window, watching over Han’s shoulder as he got the stereo to relinquish the cassette. He put in a new tape, an unmarked one.  


“New mixtape?” Luke asked, moving out of the window so that Han could get out.  


“You’ll see,” he said, clearly intending for it to be part of the surprise. He perched on the hood of the Falcon and swung his legs up, leaning back against the windshield. Luke followed, wrapping the blanket cape-like around both their shoulders. Even with the quickly-fading heat from the engine, it was quite cold, and Luke happily accepted the unspoken offer in Han’s outstretched arm. He snuggled in against Han’s side- he was unfairly warm, and Luke had no qualms about sapping all of that heat, especially after being dragged out of bed.  


He had to admit, though, that the landscape was stunning. Unnatural brightness, resulting from moonlight reflecting off of miles of snow, revealed every neighborhood and tiny farmstead in sharp detail. The scene was bordered by distant mountains on the horizon, and a stand of bare trees close on either side of the parking lot. It was dazzlingly beautiful.  


Luke was distantly aware of the music winding its way out of the speakers and up through the open windows. He recognized some, but others were unfamiliar, and he knew that he would have to give it his undivided attention some time soon. Knowing Han, each song had been meticulously selected, lyrics poured over for meaning and significance- and all that before he placed them in order, so that one song led into the next to tell exactly the story he intended them to tell. Luke imagined Han had approached the task with the same intensity he showed whenever he worked on the Falcon, careful and meticulous and driven, the process as much of a reward as the finished product.  


Next to him, Han sighed and shifted, re-crossing his legs, right over left to left over right. He pulled Luke a little closer, and tugged the blanket a little tighter, rested his cheek on the top of Luke’s head. In response, Luke shifted as well, to wrap his arms around Han’s waist. “What are you thinking about?”  


“I don’t know,” Han said, softly. “A lot of things. Where I’m- where we’re all going to go after graduation. What I’ll do with myself.” A great and fretful sadness tinged his words.  


“You’ll make it work, no matter what you do or where you go. You’ll figure something out. That’s what you’re good at,” Luke said, turning his head to catch Han’s eyes. He smiled, reassuringly, and he leaned up to kiss Han, light and sweet, and Han smiled into it, a small smile, but it was there all the same.  


They did not linger much longer after that, as even Han started to shiver, though he tried to hide it. He and Luke kept the easy silence as they rose and stretched and packed away the blanket.  


It was nearly one in the morning, and the roads were empty, but Han drove slowly, one-handed, his other hand holding Luke’s. Even though the drive home was slower, all too soon Han was letting go of Luke’s hand to park the Falcon at the playground. By unspoken agreement, they let the walk back down the street take up their time. They left footprints side by side in the snow.  


“I wish I didn’t have to go home,” Luke said, very quietly. “I don’t much want to say goodnight.”  


“I know. Be patient. Some day, going home won’t mean goodbye.” Han sounded so certain that it wasn’t hard at all for Luke to let himself believe his words.  


In another handful of seconds, they were standing outside of Luke’s garage. He kissed Han goodbye, turned away, turned back and kissed him once more, lightly, for good measure. 

Once he was back inside the garage, it was a simple matter to slip silently back into the house, and down the hall to his bedroom. He hung his coat on the back of his desk chair, and changed back into pajamas. On some sad whim, he pulled back the curtain, but Han was gone, out of sight, already headed back up the road to the Falcon. 

Luke reached into his coat pocket to pull his gloves out- he hadn’t needed them, but they were good to keep around just in case- and was surprised to feel a plastic box of some sort resting atop his gloves. He turned on his desk lamp to look at the box. As he had suspected, and secretly hoped, it was a copy of the mixtape from earlier. This copy was labeled, although all it said was, “For Luke.” He had no idea how Han had gotten it into his pocket, but the memento eased the sting of saying goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this more than a year ago (after much giddy conferencing and world-building with the lovely sapphea) and I still love it just as much as I did then. (Also catch my MAJOR plug for the Waterboys please listen to them you won't regret it)
> 
> Edit 3/6:  
> Come talk to me on tumblr! ventum-orientalem.tumblr.com  
> (It's east_wind in Latin because sometimes you just gotta be pretentious like that)


End file.
